South Dakota Sustains Guilt-Tripping Abortion Law

In a recent court decision, South Dakota will enforce a law that forces doctors into guilt-tripping their patients before performing an abortion. As if making the decision isn’t hard enough, now the government requires doctors to read an statement to women that says an abortion will “terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being” and may lead you to commit suicide. Um. Yeah. While the court claimed the “burden of proof” rested squarely on Planned Parenthood, perhaps there should be some actual proof to the ludicrous suicide link within the law. Although the safe sex organization argued that making doctors read the statement aloud to their patients was an infringement on the First Amendment, since the medical professionals don’t agree with the ideology, the court still wouldn’t budge. Now that’s scarier than unwanted children! [The International Herald Tribune]